Tattered Wings
by La Cidiana
Summary: Eyes are windows into the soul, they say. But if one has no soul, then what is there to see? (More twisted VincentxCid. The not-much-awaited sequel to “Up in Blood-Red Hands.)
1. Somewhat Blind

**Tattered Wings**

by La Cidiana

*~*~*

**Summary: **Eyes are windows into the soul, they say. But if one has no soul, then what is there to see? (More twisted VincentxCid. The not-much-awaited sequel to "Up in Blood-Red Hands.")

*~*~*

**Rated: **R for language and dark themes/violence. And no hard yaoi. Just like the first one. Mwah.

**A/N: **Wow. Didn't think people would like the first one so much. o_o I thought I'd get, like, a buncha bizarre Vincent fangrrrrrlll flames or something. XD Hm. Well, in any case, here's the even-bizarrer sequel I've been toying with. It's Cid-centered, so pwah. :P Did you REALLY expect anything different from moi? And yet another mandatory warning for rabid Vincent fans--he's, like, not nice. XD

Oh. If you haven't read the first one already, (which I doubt), you can still read this... and stuff... but it will be extremely confuzzling. Mmmmyessss. o_o More coming after this one, BTW. XD

*~*~*

_Eyes are windows into the soul, they say.  
But if one has no soul, then what is there to see?_

_For even those whose soulless masks haunt your dreams can smile as if alive.  
And even those whose smiles have disappeared with their lives can still have hearts that burn._

*~*~*

**1: **Somewhat Blind

*~*~*

The whole myth about vampires melting in daylight was a lie. A filthy lie. Or at least Hojo had thought so. Vincent proved this as he stood by the small magazine cart that sat in the back of an old truck parked in front of Shin-Ra Mansion late one Thursday afternoon, running his crimson eyes over the headlines of newspapers, tabloids, and half-covered porno mags alike. Reggie, the owner of the cart, leaned back against the right-hand door of the truck leisurely, glancing sideways at the red-caped man now and then to make sure he was making good progress through all the titles.

Vincent only ceased his browsing once, lightly pulling a _Chara Weekly_ out of its place with an arched eyebrow. " 'Most Influential Men and Women of the Century,' " he read the eye-catcher. He paused, looking up towards Reggie and holding up the magazine enough so that the cover was visible to the cart-owner; it sported the visage of a grey-haired man who looked to be in his early fifties, all plastic surgery aside.

"Look," Vincent said rather amusedly, a smile tugging at his half-hidden lips. "They're featuring Cloud."

Reggie chuckled, shaking his head as he grounded one of the heels of his boots into the dusty, barely-used road. "Was there really any doubt...? Eh, the rest of your old buddies make up the other first seven."

"Hm." Vincent grasped the the spine of the magazine, flipping through the pages lightly with his golden claw. "You are correct... Let us see... We have Aerith, Tifa, Barret, Cid, Nanaki, Yuffie, and Reeve." He snapped the mag shut. "I wonder... Any idea where my place in the lineup went off to...?"

"Rumor has it they couldn't find find a decent photo," Reggie shrugged. "Not even old ones like they used for Miss Gainsborough and Captain Highwind. 'Sides," he laughed, a good-natured twinkle in his eye. "What the hell _would_ they fill your page with? No one knows jack shit about where you came from or where you went, kinda like Highwind's disappearing act, except they don't have a buncha neighbors and a wife to keep track of the grief for years after years."

"Indeed..." Vincent slung the magazine under his arm along with a couple of his other usuals--_Gun Fancy_ and _Old Houses of Gaia. _He drew a few large bills from some unseen pocket. "Due in some part to the secrecy kept by my loyal paper man... heh."

He gracefully swept by Reggie on his way to the gates of the Shin-Ra mansion, dumping the small treasure into the man's hands. "Keep the change..." was the last thing he uttered before Reggie grinned and swung back into his truck, sparking the ignition and driving off down the road and away from the deserted town known as Nibelheim.

Vincent made his way through the rusted iron gate and suddenly sighed, staring out at the jungle of brambles and weeds that greeted him._ Perhaps it would have been wise to use that extra gil to hire a gardener... Ah, well..._

He walked down the overgrown path through his front yard, using his golden claw as a machete now and then before he finally reached the front door of his decrepit, cobwebbed home. It was already ajar from when he had walked outside in the first place, allowing a single beam of sunlight to penetrate the layers of darkness that had hidden him for so much time.

"....'How to keep your firearm in tip-top shape'...." Vincent read out loud slowly from the cover of _Gun Fancy, _preoccupied as he walked inside and turned towards the interior of the door. He began to gently push it closed. " 'New Technology: Lasers Become Mass Wea--' "

Suddenly, something very large and very sharp was pressed up against his spine.

He froze.

For the first time in a long, long while, Vincent's eyes widened.

A voice, a whisper, almost toneless save for a small, almost inaudible hint of fury burned through Vincent's ears.

"...Bastard."

He tried to turn his head to see his attacker, but his move was countered with a sharp pang from his throat; the man behind him had thrown his arm over Vincent's head, cutting off his airflow and causing him to become as still as a statue. The object at his back dug in further.

"...You fucking _bastard."_

The arm's grip intensified with inhuman strength that would have ruptured the ribcage of a normal man. A _normal_ man. Vincent struggled, scratching wildly at the arm with his claw and trying desperately to pry it from his neck... It was cold as ice, just like his own, and as he felt down the length of it, he also felt long, overgrown nails...

Realization suddenly dawned on him and he froze once again, this time in pure shock.

"Yeah..." The man chuckled softly, moving his head next to Vincent's ear. Long, pale blonde hair met Vincent's shoulder as he heard shallow breathing, escalating in anger. "Doesn't this all seem... kinda... just... just _kinda_ familiar....?"

The arm began to feel harder, stronger, faintly metallic.... Nails solidifying... sharpening...

_"HUH?!?!"_

Vincent could faintly feel the object puncture his skin...

"Change..." he gasped as the man's grip tightened. "......Anger.... brings......... IT.....ACH!"

"YOU THINK I _GIVE_ A SHIT?!" The man suddenly yelled in an inhuman wail that seemed more like a roar. "The only thing I care about now is that you fucking _die."_

The jagged object began to draw borrowed blood from Vincent's freshest meal and he could feel the layers of black and red cloth that formed his clothing begin to dampen with the thick liquid. The arm around his throat was feeling larger now, with sinewy muscles taut with anger. He looked down at it briefly to see the form of his destruction, and he wasn't surprised when he found himself to be in the headlock of an arm with silver-blue scales of a reptilian nature and dark claws of a strictly predatory one.

Vincent couldn't help but smile, even as the breathing next to his ear became harder, wilder, more difficult to regulate.

"So then... this is how it ends? You're going to let your demons do your dirty work?"

He paused, the silence lasting long enough for him to savor the familiar sounds of melding flesh and growing bones, of ripping clothes and and burning agony as the being who was enduring it realized it was losing control... and struggling to gain it back.

"Heh..." Vincent grinned as the monster behind him tried to calm its fury, tried to become the emotionless husk it was forced to be for every moment that it wished to wear a sheepskin of humanity. "You'd have to do more than that to get rid of me... I'm indestructible, you know------Hojo didn't mean for me to die at the hands of something I myself created---"

"You didn't _make_ me..." The voice was torn between the two warring entities, both vying for control over the same body, the same mind. "Yes... NO... No, God...._GOD _dammit.... You _didn't...."_

"I didn't...?" Vincent began to chuckle coldly as he sensed he was regaining the upper hand. "I believe you lost any right to that vessel you use now the moment you chose to cheat death..."

"No, you _bastard..._ you _gave_ me no other _CHOICE!_" Sensing the same thing as Vincent had, the monster tightened its grip on the red-caped man's neck and made another jap with its makeshift weapon. "You know where this thing is _from?!"_

Vincent paused and then shook his head slowly, cautiously.

"It came from that coffin you threw me in, that _GOD DAMNED COFFIN_--" the monster's voice was changing again "--that I had the nightmares in, Vincent, the _FUCKING **NIGHTMARES.**"_

Vincent was absolutely still, not even daring to shake in the fear that he suddenly felt crawling up his spine.

"You know what I had dreams about, Vincent...? Do you _know_ what I had to _GO THROUGH...?!" _Air was harder to get, now... "No one knew, Vincent, no one _KNEW_ why I had left... This was after I remembered all the _TIMES_ I'd yelled at Shera, all the _TIMES_ I'd made her cry... Oh, yeah, Vincent," the half-growl of a voice was back again, along with the claws, raking softly at Vincent's neck, softly... "she sometimes cried herself to sleep so loud I'd hear it from the other room, and then she was crying now too, because I'd left her when she'd thought I'd changed, thought my apology had been _WORTH _a shit..." Blood dripping down his neck... from that woman that had wandered into town last week.... She'd lasted a while, now, hadn't she?

"But I guess it counted for nothing... Ain't that right...?"

Vincent was wary of speaking, afraid that any movement within his throat would cause it to protude too much, to be cut even further by the claws sharpened by years of torment. He wondered if the monster even realized what it was doing in its fury, if it even realized that it wasn't even in full control over its actions anymore...

"_Then_ do you know what I would dream about, Vincent? No, no, of course you don't... We were married--did you know that?--we'd been married a couple of months before and she wanted a kid, not just any old kid, _my_ kid------do you _understand_, Vincent? Even after everything I'd ever done to her, she still wanted to carry my _god damned CHILD. _And I didn't want it either, because I'm such a god-fucking insensitive asshole, just like I've always been---but I said yes, I said yes for _her._"

Vincent could almost hear a sob escape between harsh, guttural breaths.

".......Vincent."

Sensing that he had better answer or be skewered, he managed to give a short, one-syllable response.

"Yes?"

There was a long silence, punctuated by the far-off cry of some hawk flying wild through the Nibel mountains. Then a whisper over Vincent's shoulder whose breath froze the tip of his ear and chilled the back of his neck.

".........I was gonna be a dad."

More silence. When the hawk didn't cry again, the creaking of the old floorboards from under him and the monster became the loudest thing next to the monster's breaths, which were changing from a steady rhythm to that same, erratic beat.

"Some little punk with a pop-cork gun was gonna be chasin' me around while I tried to work, and then I'd yell at him and he'd yell back at me and since Shera doesn't have any balls to speak of, she'd probably send us both off to a cheap counselor instead of riskin' a family feud and then I'd yell at _her_ and tell her that _she_ was the one who needed therapy; _she_ wanted to die for a goddamn rocket."

The breathing was getting worse. The grip was getting tighter. Vincent could almost imagine how fast his own heart would be beating if he'd had his own blood to pump.

"But I'd love them both.... You--y'know? And maybe..... if I cussed a little less..... a-and worked a little harder... maybe.... maybe they'd end up liking me too for the asshole jerk I was."

The blood running down Vincent's neck was really becoming a problem. More like a river than a trickle, now. He wasn't sure if he would be able to speak for a while after this, the way a couple of the claws had punctured his throat.

"That's why I let you do that to me."

Amazing. This was almost becoming.... painful.

"I didn't want to miss out on the fun, even if it meant being like you. I think that counts for something."

More than painful. Agonizing. Suddenly, Vincent remembered the sharp object that had been put to his back, and instinctively, his eyes darted downwards towards his abdomen. His expression was vacant when he saw the tip of a jagged wooden splinter as thick as his arm going through his ribcage.

"Just.... just tell me one thing, Vincent...."

The vampire looked back up, towards the front door of the mansion--_his_ mansion--outside towards the front yard that still needed trimming. He vaguely wondered who would take care of it if he wasn't around as he answered.

"What....?"

There was a pause, short enough for Vincent to not figure out what was coming, but long enough for him to guess.

He guessed wrong.

".......What..... how far did I need.... to go....?"

Vincent didn't need any clarification on the question. He gazed off at the sun that seemed to be setting so far away. Funny. He could have sworn it had just been morning.

"You.... needed to accept your fate...." He murmured distantly. ".....And.... taste your own tainted blood. You needed to drink it of your own accord, take it as it was offered to you from the hand of the one who wished to Gift you....."

He was, however, able to predict the inquiry that came next.

".....After that.....?"

Vincent chuckled, but not maliciously. His work here was finished, and he had no regrets. If he was to finally leave this place, then so be it. He wouldn't resist the fate the Gods had willed him.

He closed his eyes.

"After that..." He echoed, lost in a dream of the rightfully mad Hojo, the flower Lucrecia, the child Sephiroth, and _him_.... His plan had worked, hadn't it? He had known it would work.... If anyone could prove Hojo's unflattering hypotheses of human will wrong... Vincent hadn't been able to, but _him....._ ".....There was no need for anything after that."

He could sense the rage that was building, the anger that was about to erupt. In his last act of his own soul's redemption, he jerked backwards, holding his face close to the monster's chin, managing with his last ounce of strength to throw his closest arm upwards, around the back of the monster's neck as he breathed softly into its ear.

"I can still love you...." He pulled himself closer. "You may not realize it now.... if I can still love you, it means you can still survive." He closed his eyes. "If you survive.... if you break the cycle.... if you kill me as your own self.... I..... I've succeeded."

There was a pause. He felt a slight relaxation in the other, a slight change in demeanor. The monster's skin felt softer--colder, but softer, as seconds passed. Vincent's grip loosened and he felt his head fall backwards, away from the monster, away from reality. As he opened his eyes a final time he found he was looking upwards, into twin suns of twin universes of the souls he had saved.

He smiled.

"I see the sky in your eyes..." He whispered.

And then, in all ways of this world, he perished.

The monster wasn't sad. Nor was he angry. He felt a strange emptiness, a confusion at the root of his will to go on. He thought of laying down beside the lost soul, but it wouldn't do any good----wishful thinking about true death would only put him further in the death he was already desperately fighting. He closed his eyes, dropped the bloodied splinter from the palm of his hand, shakily brought a stark-white palm to his forehead. His hair was probably soaked in the liquid, he knew, as were the tattered remants of pants that still harbored a bare trace of a pale shade of green.

The sun hurt, he suddenly realized as he felt a burning sensation upon the bare flesh of his chest as a faint, dry wind blew the front door a bit more open. The sun hurt because he knew he couldn't be in it, he couldn't bring himself to even look straight at it like he had done so many times in days long past, daring it to leave black and blue spots in his vision. But he did look up---he looked up and saw the blue surrounding the evil white orb, saw in the heavens what Vincent had seen in his soul.

For the first time in thirty years, Cid remembered the sky.


	2. Shattered Glass

**Tattered Wings  
  
**by La Cidiana  
  
*~*~*  
  
**A/N: **Wheee, the first fic to partially type on my new computer! :D Okay. THIS chapter gets a bit... disturbing.... um. Yes. There **is** sexual content in this one, though not explicit. It's longer than the others too. And. I decided to add on to the sequel instead of having a bunch of baby vampire stories, since this fic is getting to be so long.... But SO fun to write. XD Evilly.... enough. Although the end of this part was rather difficult.... ._.  
  
Yay, Cid angst. :3 And craziness. XD This chapter is a bit difficult to follow because it keeps jumping around, but that's okay because Cid goes a bit crazy in it anyway. XD Okay. Yes. Um. You know what's funny? I have _never_ read Anne Rice. XDD! And don't tell me all the rules of vampireyness and how I'm not following them and whatnot, because these are MY vampires and MY rules. O XD  
  
*~*~*  
  
_You think you know and then you don't.  
You think you can and then you won't.  
You think the thoughts you think are real.  
It can't be though; your wounds won't heal._  
  
*~*~*  
  
**2: **Shattered Glass  
  
*~*~*_  
  
_Blood wasn't any kind of bright red to his eyes-----not crimson, not garnet, not ruby nor rose. It was darker than that, more like a thick maroon with a trace of black in the darker spots if you looked hard enough. Nothing like those romantics made it out to be.  
  
These were Cid's thoughts as he looked down at his hand, as he viewed this supposed "sanguine" liquid that coated the skin that so sharply contrasted it. He put his thumb and forefinger together, rubbing the blood between them as if testing its composition. Then, he pulled them apart, opened his mouth ever so slightly, and lightly brushed his thumb against the tip of his tongue.  
  
"It's still warm," he could imagine himself saying in that toneless voice he hated to hear. He could imagine himself taking a suspenseful pause-----and then adding: "It's human."  
  
But he didn't.  
  
Instead, he stood up with fluidity he hadn't possessed a long time before, closing his eyes as he licked the whole of the two fingers clean. He didn't like to watch himself do things like that. It was better to disengage himself, distract himself, pretend it was someone else who felt a tingle of pleasure run down their spine and a faint feeling of rejuvenation run through their body as he rolled the sweet taste around his mouth. He sometimes even tried to think it was Vincent taking actions through his body, but then he would stop almost immediately when he realized that _every single fucking thing he **did** reminded him of Vincent.  
  
_There... those little bouts of uncontrolled vulgarity... they seemed to be the only things now that still assured him that there was still a bit of something inside of him that was worth protecting. Something left of his own self. And if he tried to go any further, he would be letting his own anger take hold of his mind and propel his emotions so far that he would begin to feel his physical self changing in accordance to the inner demons that began to manifest.  
  
Strangely enough, those were the only times he felt even the remotest bit human. Be a monster in his lack of emotion and a human in face or let humanity's turbulent thoughts reign supreme and allow the monster to move to his flesh, where it might pervert his thoughts and twist his rage unto others. Those were the bleak choices Cid was forced to face, and so there he was, trying to keep himself planted in an undefined, surreal purgatory between the two where he could tentatively grasp bare control over his actions while still feeling a muted compassion for things that still lived, even if he wasn't able to show it or if sometimes he wasn't sure he could even feel it.  
  
This was one of those times as he opened his cold blue eyes and surveyed the snow at his feet. It was dotted intermittently with splotches of blood, a trail that continued farther down on the fallen snow underneath the canopy of bare, frost-eaten branches. It was the middle of winter, but he wasn't cold, even as a chilled wind blew through his hair and ruffled the shirt he wore that offered close to no protection from the elements. He'd been lucky to find anything in the old mansion, especially some old button-up, collared thing probably as ancient as Vincent himself.  
  
Cid had gone looking for that a day after Vincent's final demise, after he had noticed the magazine that Vincent had been holding and picked it up, looking at the date on the top of it out of pure, detached curiosity. How long had it been...? Months...? No, it must have been years.... One, five.... ten? Fifteen.....?  
  
Thirty.  
  
Thirty fucking _years.  
  
_There was no way he could believe it at first when he looked at the aged face on the cover and noticed that it was discreetly labeled "Cloud Strife." He then flipped through the pages with a blank gaze, similar to what Vincent had done just minutes before, watching the faces of elderly men and women who had used to be his comrades pass by in front of his eyes.  
  
Then he came to a name that seemed vaguely familiar on his tongue. He was surprised this one didn't look as old as the others, and was even more surprised when the photo shown was one of his own face, followed by the numbers "2437-2470."  
  
He read about the life of Cid Highwind, how he had been born, how he had been raised, how he had lived, and then how he had died.  
  
"The pilot disappeared at age 33 from his home in Rocket Town late one night in December under mysterious circumstances. His friends said he was prone to sudden changes in behavior; he was a 'free spirit,' an anonymous friend said, 'nothing could hold his attention for too long. He wasn't exactly the _friendliest _guy.... I don't think anyone was surprised when he up and deserted Shera, seeing what he'd done to her before. Kinda stupid to stay with him, if you ask me, even if she _was_---' "  
  
He shut the magazine. Tight. He closed his eyes, tightened his jaw, tried to ward off the anguish that would only bring anger as he hugged the published piece close, close to his chest.  
  
He managed to get his face to an apathetic state, or at least something close to it, and looked to Vincent's limp, bloodied corpse. He blinked. Nothing had really registered yet, except for the fact that as he looked down, he realized that his blonde hair reached down to his hips---longer than Vincent's and twice as tangled.  
  
That was when he decided he needed a shower.  
  
No thinking, no feeling, just a fucking shower.  
  
He somehow carried himself upstairs, a tightly clenched fist always running against the wall beside him, something to guide him as he staggered down the hall, past the room with the hidden door he had broken through with his bare hands, past the old carving in the floor with one of those combination numbers he wished they had _never_ found, all the way to the bathroom. He walked in and quietly closed the door behind him with a click and turned the lock out of memories of a long-lost habit. He looked towards where he guessed the mirror would be, (right over the incredibly dirty sink, though since it wasn't filled with cobwebs like the rest of the place, it must have been used recently.) He found the mirror, all right--gritty and grimy as it might have been, but just as he was about to take a good look in it, he turned away, locking his gaze instead on the shower.  
  
Maybe it'd be a good idea to clean up first...  
  
He didn't have much to take off since his shirt from eons ago had disintegrated in the coffin after so much tossing and turning in his nightmares and his pants were pretty much reaching that point. He stepped into the dual bathroom/shower at the end of the small room, not bothering to pull back the tattered excuse for a curtain as he positioned himself under the showerhead and bent over to fiddle with the faucet. He was somewhat perturbed to find that his fingernails, although not flagrantly huge, had been left to grow long enough that it was hard to get a good grip on the rusted knob. Forget the fact his hands were quaking like shattered earth----he hated those fucking flaming fingernails.  
  
"God damn piece of shit..." He mumbled softly but without any true emotion. The words were empty, devoid of any discernible tone, and instead of comforting him like he had intended them to, they made the silence that came directly afterwards feel more lonely and hopeless than it already had been. Cid felt a desperate need to fill it, but he didn't even try. He didn't have the energy to fight the instinct that ordered him to be mute.  
  
Suddenly, the force he was putting upon the knob seemed to pay off as it wrenched downwards and he felt the sensation of water being harshly sprayed upon his back. His mouth hanging half-open, he closed his eyes, putting his hands to the long bangs that hung over his face, and smoothed them down to the back of his head. He raised his chin, straightened his back, and let the water shoot straight as his face. It must have been freezing cold, he knew, and if he had still been Cid Highwind, he probably would have cried out a colorful adjective in shock and fallen back onto the bathroom floor as soon as one drop had hit his arm. But it didn't matter now. His body was pure ice as it was.  
  
He ran his fingers through his hair, gathering as much as he could of it in a bunch at the back of his head. He lowered his chin back down, opened his eyes halfway, and stared at the cracked, mildew-spattered tile on the wall in front of him through the drops of water that clung to his lashes and weighed them down until they dropped into the corners of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He mused with the idea that they were the tears he couldn't shed until he realized it'd been a rare occasion for him to cry even in life.  
  
But at least then he'd had something to hold in.  
  
Suddenly, his hand shot out, grasping the knob and closing it tight, causing the shower to fade into a tiny trickle. His left hand was still at the back of his head, but it was holding his hair firmer now, tightly enough that he felt a few of the strands closer to his hand being pulled from their roots, though he was unable to sense the small pinpricks of pain that were supposed to accompany it.  
  
A voice, _his_ voice, pleading softly, desperately, at the back of his mind.  
  
_dontletmediepleasedontletmedieineedtoseeherineedtoexplainneedtostay  
alivesomehowsomewaypleasehelpmeprotectmedontletmediedontforgetherdontforget  
mepleasepleasedontletmedielikehim......  
  
.....don't let me die.......  
  
_Cid slowly opened his eyes (he had closed them...?) and stood up, taking a cautious step from the water that pooled around his ankles (the drain must have been broken...) onto the dark, wood-paneled floor. He moved towards the mirror, somewhat grateful he couldn't immediately see his reflection through the crud that covered it, but he still put his palm to it, rubbing away the grit that had accumulated after years of unuse. (But hadn't Vincent taken care of his looks all this time...?) When he finished, he didn't take a deep breath or even pause---he just looked up.  
  
The face he saw was not Cid Highwind's. Cid Highwind wasn't white-----yes, white in a racial and ethnic sense, but not _white. _Cid Highwind was also supposed to have wrinkles---not big ones---baby ones, sprouting furtively from the corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth caused by too much smoking too early in life. Cid Highwind's nose was supposed to be slightly crooked from a childhood bike accident; there was supposed to be a speck of dark discoloration underneath his left eye...  
  
Cid began to form an idea of how Vincent had managed to be pretty to the point of femininity. This stranger had no blemishes, no imperfections upon its face of ivory, nothing unexpected jutting out of unexpected places as Cid ran his fingers gently down its skin. It might have looked like Cid Highwind--with the same hard mouth, the same thick, upswept eyebrows, the same shaped face, and the same blue eyes------- but maybe not the eyes. Cid Highwind's eyes were always bright, always full of liveliness---or at least irritability. These eyes were too dull, too icy to be Cid Highwind's. They didn't have the spark. They didn't have the energy.  
  
They didn't have the life.  
  
The eyes that were sadly trying to impersonate Cid Highwind's wandered down towards the cabinet underneath the sink. He opened it and peered into the darkness that he could easily view things in. It suddenly occurred to him that the whole room was nearly pitch-black.  
  
A pair of rusty scissors. Vincent must have cut his hair with these...  
  
Cid grabbed them and stood up, holding the bunch of wet hair as he looked into the mirror and positioned the sharp edges of the scissors over and under his hold. Without a moment of hesitation, he clamped the fingerholds together and let go of the hair simultaneously, allowing himself to be at least ten pounds lighter as the thirty years worth of growth fell to the ground with a dull thud. He put his hands to the remaining hair that was slicked back by water on his head and pulled out the longer parts bit-by-bit, snipping, snipping, until anything extra was all gone and he was left with a crude resemblance of the hairstyle he had once had a long time ago.  
  
He did the same with his nails, cutting them with the same scissors and leaving unhealthily jagged edges at the tips. He didn't care. As soon as he was done, he flexed his hands one-by-one, observing them, watching the muscles move underneath the soft, white hands that should have been covered in calluses and half-scabbed scratches.  
  
He looked back into the mirror.  
  
He could have passed for Cid Highwind if someone hadn't known him very well and if that same someone could somehow manage to ignore his skin.  
  
Cid glanced himself over, then looked himself in the eye. Upon closer inspection, there _was_ a spark there, even if it was as dim as a fading candle and invisible to anyone except himself.  
  
He smiled.  
  
Slightly.  
  
Sadly.  
  
But it was a smile, nonetheless. The welcoming, relieving sight of it was enough to make it just a bit wider, make it open just a bit more, and that in itself was enough to bring on the halting beginnings of a timid grin.  
  
Which was when he caught a glimpse of the fangs.  
  
He was numb to any shock. He was numb to any shame. He was numb to all the emotions that suddenly raced through his head, and he was numb to any pain as his fist shattered the glass in front of him.  
  
Mirrors weren't supposed to work for vampires, anyway.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Cid knew he needed blood. Desperately. You could "live" without it for so long, but after a while...  
  
He would rather choose a victim than repeat what had happened last time.  
  
For the first few weeks, he'd stayed in the mansion. He didn't know why the hell he didn't leave the first chance he got, but whenever he did start preparing himself for a figurative departure, he would remember that he had nowhere else to go, nobody to see, and even if he _could_ somehow meet up with some of his old friends... How would they react? How would they have changed? What the hell would they think of him? Who the hell would even _believe_ it was him?  
  
He didn't even think about Shera....  
  
He didn't have the energy, didn't have the drive to leave the morbid sanctuary---had no energy for anything, in fact, except for pulling out old trunks of clothes and knickknacks and rummaging through them for articles of clothing that would fit his lean form. (He'd lost some muscle during those thirty years---gained strength he hadn't had and didn't want, but lost the buff looks that were supposed to come with it.)  
  
He wondered if maybe that was just his way to cope. To keep himself busy with nothing in this unmarked asylum of the damned. He began to seriously worry about his declining state of sanity when, on a random whim, he sat down at the old, dusty piano in the ball room and heard himself play Beethoven's ninth symphony. He was even more concerned when Vincent asked him for a turn.  
  
Cid nodded, pushing the seat back as Vincent watched him. The man in red sat down on the deflated cushion and began fingering out a smooth, eerie tune that caused Cid to close his eyes. He felt like dozing off; the morning sun was beginning to invade the night sky from over the peaks of the Nibel mountains, and that was when his body begged for rest, his mind helping it by trying its best to trick him into sleep. Since that first day, he hadn't really fought against it. Too hard, too hard, no energy, the excuse he always made to his silent subconscious. He didn't know how Vincent had been able to do it---walk around in the sunlight day after day. That had probably been the purpose of his thick clothing and his long hair... and the collar that hid his mouth when he spoke....  
  
The rays always burned Cid's skin whenever they touched him, causing him to shrink back into the shadows and fall down into a corner where he would hold his arms tightly to each other and close his eyes. He would try to forget everything about _now_ and remember everything about _then. _Try to remember beautiful things, like his rocket and the sky whose sun now betrayed him, hurting him in a sick, disgusting way he couldn't fathom and he couldn't stand...  
  
Shera....  
  
He would try to remember her face, then clench this teeth together when he realized he _couldn't_, couldn't even remember her _voice_, and then he would clench them tighter when he felt his upper fangs digging into his lower gums, just to savor the rare occasion when they broke through his skin and he could feel _pain_. That seemed to be the only sensitive part of his body---his mouth---and in a twisted sort of way, it was pleasurable to feel anything other than freezing-cold numbness, even if it was agony that caused him to double-over onto the hard floor. He wished sometimes he could do the same thing with the sun---stand in the light and bear it, try to make it turn him to dust like in all the old movies he'd seen clips of as a child. It only backfired----he would snarl and hiss and whimper and before he knew it, he'd be back in a corner, realizing that inside he was nothing but an animal and wishing he'd never left Rocket Town ever, ever, _ever_ in his entire life.  
  
Even so, it was emotional pain that hurt him most, and it was emotional pain he tried most to avoid. But it was hard to do that now, standing with his eyes closed, trapped in wistful memories as Vincent's strange music floated into the rafters of the house and the confines of his own mind.  
  
"Stop it...." he suddenly said. He opened his eyes and looked straight at Vincent's face. It held more color than his own.... "Cut that crap right now." His voice was faint; he hadn't spoken since the long fingernails incident. "You're not real. I made sure you wouldn't be...."  
  
Vincent didn't look up from the instrument whose black paint was getting harder and harder to see as light began to creep into the room. He responded, but not to Cid's demand.  
  
"There is no need for you to subjugate yourself to such torture, you know...."  
  
"Subjugate myself to _what _torture_." _It wasn't a question, and Cid's voice was only slightly stressed on the 'what' part. It was all that he could manage to tweak his voice.  
  
"Solitude. Depression. Stiffness. The pain you wish you could feel..."  
  
Cid's head snapped up as Vincent said that, and the red-caped man paused, the music stopping abruptly as he held his slender hands above the keys. He turned towards Cid, one eyebrow arched and a smile upon his face.  
  
"You see..." He set the elbow of his flesh arm on the piano's edge, brought the back of his hand to his chin, and rested his head upon it. "Just because your life is over in one sense does not mean that it is over in others..." He sighed, shaking his head sadly. "You do not need to be abstinent to emotions... emotions you can _show_, that is..." He stood up and began to walk towards Cid. The damned man took a single step backwards. He trusted Vincent about as much as he trusted his own thoughts, which wasn't much, seeing as this whole thing was just a hallucination his mind was conjuring up. (But then.... _why_ was it he was backing away...?)  
  
"It is... truly horrible to see you torment yourself needlessly. It reminds me of myself, wasting away to nothing in this place before I discovered the release that my dear friend Dr. Hojo had programmed into my body---the very same one that I have programmed into yours..."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" Another step backwards. A feeling of panic raced swiftly through his empty veins as he found himself up against a wall as Vincent advanced upon him. Just like that time, just like that---  
  
"You can be yourself again," the older vampire said carefully, casually. "Completely and wholly---for a limited time, of course. But you can always extend that time if need be and want allows..."  
  
"How?" Cid couldn't help it. The word leapt from his mouth of its own accord.  
  
**_Don't_**_ let him tempt you again... Dammit, it's probably gonna be worse than last time...  
  
_Last time...?  
  
_This_ time...  
  
It was all exactly as it had been before, he realized. Suddenly, he was back in the basement, the dungeon, the crypt where he had been damned for all eternity, and he was half-human again as Vincent sank his fangs into his neck, and once again, he was crying out, everything dimming so quickly, everything becoming numb as he realized there was no pounding in his ears and no air in his lungs; there was nothing to pump and no need to breathe. He suddenly felt a tightness in his vocal cords as his eyes widened. He was staring in shock over Vincent's shoulder as he felt the man's claw and arm wrapped around his shoulders. Vincent whispered into his ear, but it didn't seem like a whisper... more like a voice invading his mind... twisting it.... controlling it.... things..... seemed to be..... becoming.... so...... dark..........  
  
_Decide quickly--I doubt that you will last long.  
  
I.... no.... I.....  
  
You are **dying,** Cid. Do you see a heaven in the faint extremes of your vision? No. Do you know why? There is no heaven, Cid. Nor is there a hell. There is only life and death and something wonderful in between....  
  
You.... you aren't..... taking me..... down.... with you..... I swear to God I won't let you....  
  
It's not so bad, the Thirst. Sometimes you will be lucky and find someone on their own.... sometimes drunk.... sometimes.... with no hope in life as it is...... You can even use animals if you so wish.... But, of course, when you absorb an **animal's** essence....  
  
Stop it..... I'll die. I don't care----I'll fucking **die** and swim around in the fucking lifestream----DO YOU HEAR ME?!?!?  
  
Hm.... I wonder.... What would Shera say to that, Cid....?  
  
.......No.... don't you **DARE**.....  
  
She still thinks you left of your own accord. I don't blame her at all. You have left many times before when things got uncomfortable, hard to handle between you and her....  
  
We.... but.... now..... it's different.....  
  
Now....? **Now** you have seemed more and more stressed, standing outside, smoking your lungs out.... Ever since that night.... what happened, then?  
  
....I.... Shera.....  
  
You'll be able to see her. Touch her. Hear her voice. Speak to her, explain... Can you imagine her depression, her desperation if she thought you had left her? Can you imagine how badly she would take the blame upon herself? She always does that, feels culpable for every.... single..... thing you have done to her.... Heh. You know what she will do. She has tried it before...  
  
NO. She wasn't serious----I stopped her-----!  
  
And if you hadn't been there...? You are the one always urging her on in her depression... Maybe--if you decide to live--you will be able to go back and change it....  
  
I.... living like you..... it isn't life.....  
  
Perhaps. But what Shera will do to herself... That isn't life either, is it?  
  
......You..... **bastard**...... you **planned** it this way......  
  
Perhaps that is true as well. But think about it, Cid. She gave up a life for you.... taking care of you during your pursuit of dreams even through your abuse.... Then she was willing to give up her physical life for you, on that day of the launch.... and the tables turned, didn't they? It was not her, but **you** who gave up his life of dreams and ambitions so that she would not be obligated to sacrifice hers.... And then, in return, she gave up what little pride she had to be no more than a servant for you, a subjective scapegoat as you wallowed in your own misery. And when you finally came to accept her as a human being.... she gave up yet another life for you when she married you in full forgiveness of what you had done to her.  
  
............I.............  
  
It's two against one, Cid. You owe her a life. So, what you need to ask yourself is....  
  
_The darkness settling upon Cid's sight cleared for a moment, and he was blearily able to make out Vincent's face---his crimson eyes narrowed in a cat's content smile, covered in bright red blood that he now licked slowly, seductively from his lips. Cid was too disoriented to think anything except that the blood must have been _his.  
  
_Vincent grinned widely. There was something like emotion in his eyes as he leaned in closer towards Cid, closer, closer.... Cid was able to make out the faint details of his face---and what was this? His face held _color_, small scars, barely visible, but _there_ nonetheless.... He looked.... he looked almost.... human.... he _felt_ human as he bent his head towards Cid's, putting his lips to bridge of the damned man's eyebrow and slowly moved them down the length of his cheek. They didn't feel cold at all---in fact they were _warm_, almost sickeningly so, rivaling even the trail of hot blood that the same lips left upon his face. Cid felt a hiccup of shock suddenly rack his throat as Vincent pressed his face to the side of his own, causing the back of it to press up against the wall... hard... cold... wall.....  
  
"......How far are you willing to go for her...?"  
  
Cid couldn't answer. He couldn't speak, not only because of the shock and the stress on his system, but because he physically _couldn't. _ His throat muscles had locked up, his jaw refused to move in any direction.... Vincent must have known this. If he did, then how did _hell_ did he expect an answer....?  
  
And then, it suddenly became clear, painfully, lucidly clear, as Vincent put his lips to Cid's.  
  
Cid vaguely remembered that saying---what was it?---actions spoke louder than words.....  
  
God_**_fuck_** whoever had said that.  
  
Must've been related to the warm-sweat mother fucker...  
  
Sweat....? He wasn't sweating.... couldn't sweat, wasn't alive, wasn't alive, couldn't see her, she'd kill herself, she had time left, she couldn't die what the hell was he thinking why the hell would she want to die just die you die if you die she will too it's worse than death but worth a try why the hell are you running are you afraid cid are you afraid of death no i'm afraid of nondeath i'm afraid of being a fucking _vincent_ for fuck's sake why are you confusing me you mother fucker i'll kill you i'll kill you ill kill youkill  
youkillyoukillyouHE'STRYINGTOKILLYOUKILLINGYOUKILLINGYOUDONTLET  
HIMDONTLETHIMFORGODSSAKESBUTWHATABOUTSHERAFUCKSHERAWHYTHE  
HELLWOULDSHEWANTTOSEEYOULIKETHIS SHELOVESYOUSHELOVES_YOU_AND  
THEKIDSHEWOULDHAVEWITH_YOU_NOTSOMEFUCKINGMONSTERTHAT  
LOOKSLIKEYOUSHELOVESYOUINLIFESHELOVESYOUSHELOVESLIFEWITH  
YOUWITHOUTYOUTHERE is no life.....  
  
_......God.... dammit........  
  
......I don't..... want to be..... a murderer.......  
  
_And suddenly, he was on the Shin-Ra Number 26, unlocking the emergency mechanism, pulling up the plastic covering, and shutting his eyes tightly, tears threatening to fall from his eyes and a single sob clutched tightly in his throat as he pressed the "Abort" switch------and in a much more distant reality, felt his muscles loosen, pressed his cold, stiff lips to Vincent's feverishly hot ones, and allowed a blood-soaked tongue to gently penetrate into his mouth..... the taste of blood... the taste... it.... was his.... blood... iron... biting.... his fangs were for biting.... they... were growing..... a hand on his chest, warm, relieving, running its slender fingers along the curves of his shuddering muscles.... was that because... they were getting stronger... stronger, somehow... but at the same time... he was.... drowning....?  
  
Down, down, down.... the blood in his mouth, the bittersweet tongue, darkness from behind his eyes and inside his mind, the gentle hands moving down...... down....... down............ down................. all the way........... down............ everything falling so far from him----all hope, all feeling, a dry sob from his throat finally released from that launch day long ago, but muffled by the face held tightly to his by the mouth, screaming in his mind, so faint, so weak-----_Get off of me-----GET YOUR HANDS THE **FUCK** away from me... my... me......  
  
How far, Cid?  
  
......How far.... for **her**....?  
  
_A swift movement, the sound of cloth ripping, a sharp intake of breath that only brought more blood down his throat. He choked on it, choked on it so hard, so painfully, even as the tongue pushed forward, forcing the acidic concoction further down, down, down, where the hands were, stroking softly, both of them, another body pressed close to his..... He..... _could........._ force...... him...... away.........  
  
_.......Shera.........  
  
_Everything faded into memories of a night of acceptance and allowance, of his own bare flesh upon Vincent's and the deep pool of sweet-tasting blood that tied it all together.  
  
And then he didn't want to remember anymore.  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
